Top 4 Digital Trends for 2021 (What It Means for Your Business)

Over the last few months, there has been a lot of digital transformation more than any of us could’ve imagined. A lot of businesses are using digital platforms at full blast to stay connected with customers.  

How does this contribute to digital trends? What can we expect in 2021? 

Let’s start with the growth in internet usage. As of the 3rd quarter of 2020, there are almost 5 billion internet users from all around the world.   

You’d be crazy not to take advantage of these amazing statistics.  

So, here are the four key digital trends that highlight actionable opportunities for you to boost customer engagement and revenue.   

2021 Digital Trends You Shouldn’t Miss

Chatbots  

Chatbots, short for chatterbot, more popularly known as “live chat”, is an AI feature that businesses can embed on their websites.   

It uses instant messaging to chat in real-time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, with both your customers and your site visitors.  

Chatbots serve as a virtual assistant that offers impeccable customer service by performing automated and repetitive tasks. This means you can focus on other aspects of your business while your chatbot handles inquiries for you.  

Programmatic Advertising  

Programmatic advertising is the real-time buying and selling of ad inventory through an automated bidding system.  

This digital trend has penetrated different areas such as Basic Communication, Product Recommendation, Email Personalisation, and Content Creation. This will also enable you to profile customers who come from your social media platforms and hit them with the right ads.  

Let’s say you looked up clothes on the Internet and when you opened Facebook, you're being bombarded with ads from Zaful or Shein. That’s a great example of programmatic advertising.  

You may have already experienced this kind of “sorcery”. But the truth is, Programmatic Advertising is using AI-powered algorithms that evaluate users based on their behaviour, demographic data, cookie data, browser history, and more.  

Voice Search and Smart Speaker  

I think most of us could agree that in one way or another, Siri and Alexa have made our lives easier. Especially for the millennials and Gen Z who prefer to search for a good hangout place online without lifting a finger.   

Businesses need to adapt because if talking is the new typing, then you should optimise your website content for voice search. This year alone, more than half of all internet searches were done through voice search.   

This means that in 2021, consumers will want to get answers while talking with smart speaker devices, their cars, and more.   

Geo-fencing 

Geo-fencing allows real-time ad targeting based on where the user is located. In fact, there are advertising firms that offer geofencing ads.  

Geo-fencing ads work when a user enters a certain area that was geo-targeted by a particular business. For example, Burger King, the user will then see ads or receive push notifications from Burger King while he or she is inside the circumference of the geo-targeted location. 

This is an important digital trend you need to take note of because this can help you save a lot of cost for advertising. You’re not just showing ads, you’re also targeting the people within arm’s reach and convert them into buying customers.

Stay ahead of the game 

The foreseeable future is quite obvious – almost all industries will be leaning towards technological advancements. So, if you want to stay on top of the competition, you need to keep up with tech trends like those mentioned above. Because doing so lets you deliver the best products, services, and customer experience to your target market.